Untitled - CGIAR Impact

14 ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF NEW RICE TECHNOLOGY
Table 6. Inputs, yields, and net returns of experiments in irrigated fields of three farms in Nueva Ecija,
Philippines, 1973.
Treatment
no.
Inputs
N P 2 O 5
cost
(kg/ha) (kg/ha) 2,4-D (US$/ha)
Total
yield
(t/ha)
Yield
Increase over control
Net
return
(US$/ha)
Net
return
per US$
cost
1 0 0 No 0 1.6 –
2
40 0 No 8 2.3 0.7 b
3
60 0 No 12 1.9 a 0.3
4
80 0 No 16 2.2 a 0.6
5
0 60 No 14 1.6 0
6
40 60 No 22 2.5 0.9 b
7 60 60 No 26 2.3 a 0.7
8
80 60 No 30 2.0 a 0.4
9 0 0 Yes 3 2.3 0.7
10
40
0 Yes 11 2.3 a 0.7
11
60
0 Yes 15 2.2 a 0.6
12
80
0 Yes 19 2.4 0.8 b
13
0 60 Yes 17 2.5 0.9
14
40 60 Yes 25 2.7 1.1
15 60 60 Yes 29 2.7 a 1.1
16 80 60 Yes 33 2.9 1.3
–
b
a
a
b
b
a
a
42
a
a
b
41
46
a
51
–
4.5
–
–
–
1.6
–
–
15.5
–
–
1.7
2.5
1.8
–
1.5
a Treatment with more input and the same or lower yield than anothertreatment. b Treatment with higher
cost and the same or lower yield than another treatment.
and 2,4-D were used, illustrating clearly the production complementarity
among the inputs.
Economic analysis is not required to eliminate all nitrogen treatments
beyond the point of maximum output for a given P 2 O 5 and weed control levels
(treatments 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15 in Table 6). Of the 9 treatments left, 4 (treatments
2, 5, 6, 12) are obviously uneconomic because they cost more than
another treatment giving the same or higher yield. (Note that changes in the
prices of inputs or of rice would require new consideration of which treatments
are uneconomic in this sense.) Yields from the remaining 5 treatments
(1, 9, 13, 14, 16) ranged from 1.6 t/ha for zero inputs to 2.9 t/ha with the highest
level of inputs.
Calculations of costs and returns for these five treatments show that the
highest yielding treatment is also the most profitable. Treatment 16 gave
$51/ha increase in net returns over the control, but treatment 9 gave $42/ha
and was much cheaper. There is relatively little difference in profitability between
treatments 9 and 16, although the latter increased the yield almost twice
as much. The cash cost of treatment 16, which is a reflection of the possible loss
faced by the farmer, was 10 times greater than the cash cost of treatment 9. The
return per unit of cash cost in treatment 9 was 10 times greater than that in
treatment 16. With these alternatives, a farmer might quite rationally choose
treatment 9 instead of 16.
The same experiment carried out on rainfed fields gave similar results (Fig.
3). Some of the high-input treatments again gave less output than lower input